> Our plan is to throw 12-16GB at it, with the purpose of vastly increasing > the FS buffer cache (and decreasing I/O). Or, will that just be a waste > of RAM? > > Some indications are that, yes, it does improve performance notably: > > http://blog.fastmail.fm/2007/09/21/reiserfs-bugs-32-bit-vs-64-bit-kernels-cache-vs-inode-memory/ > > Anyone have any specific thoughts? Is there any other benefit we might > see from large memory allocation in 64-bit architecture? Given that I wrote that blog post, I can only tell you that in our environment, 64-bit kernels made a big difference. Your environment sounds pretty small though, so you might want to see what your current load actually is. If it's already < 1, then adding extra RAM + a 64-bit kernel isn't going to buy you that much more. On the other hand, RAM is pretty cheap, and it might be worth doing it and going to 64-bit so you don't have to deal with it one day in the future... Rob ---- Cyrus Home Page: http://cyrusimap.web.cmu.edu/ Cyrus Wiki/FAQ: http://cyrusimap.web.cmu.edu/twiki List Archives/Info: http://asg.web.cmu.edu/cyrus/mailing-list.html
